PAGE LAYOUT AND POETRY: I feel stupid. Previously in this space, I wondered why I had the intuition that page layout (in comics) is more “verbal,” more like reading a novel or a poem, than pictures (in comics). A conversation last night with a friend helped me figure out one piece of the answer, which was probably obvious to you if you read comics a lot, but I’m new to this: Layout–the placing and shape of panels and word balloons–is the stuff that gives comics meter. Layout creates the rhythm. How did I miss that?

There’s more to it, of course. Layout also includes the “camera angles” and cropping, which strike me as less related to setting the meter and more related to mood, character, and emphasized detail. Still, I now feel like I have a way to approach thinking about page layouts, and I’m going to chew on this a bit more to see if I can say anything useful about it.